Re: Multiple subdirectories with non-similar configure needs

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 03/29/2011 06:39 PM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> Hello autoconfers. Just my 2 cents about the issue ...

> Do you think it would be viable/useful to enahnace AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS (or
> write a brand new macro) to allow the "parent" configure script to pass
> different options to different "sub" configure scripts?  I know one can
> use the `configure.gnu' hack, but that does not seem clear or natural as
> using e.g.:
>    AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS([foo], [--with-zardoz])
>    AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS([bar], [--without-zardoz])

It's a step into the right direction. It is useful in cases when you 
only want to append arguments (which often applies).

However, in general, you will want to process a configure script 
arguments and to compose the arguments to pass to sub-configure scripts.

Also to be taken into account in such a context would be autoconf's 
"precious vars" and config.caches (They both only work if a 
sub-configure's precious vars and config.cache'ed vars's notion matches).

When generalizing more, there are cases a user wants to create build 
subdirs dynamically. Classical use case for this would be a 
cross-compiled package suite containing "build"/"host" and (several) 
target compiled subdirs. Another use-case would be users wanting to 
compile the same subdir multiple times.

Ralf